Sustainable management of the world's land resources is a key to the provision of food for a more affluent global population and progress in other areas, such as improved water quality and mitigation of climate change. But the world's land resources are far too varied in their soils, native and managed vegetation, water resources and climatic norms and extremes to expect that a single, globally comprehensive strategy can be applied to meet such goals. Rather, lessons to guide programs aimed at achieving sustainability can be assembled from experience gained in discrete geographic, climatic and edaphic regions. One such region is the semiarid to subhumid North American Great Plains (hereafter NAGP), a region that since settlement has [...]
